Tajik drug police confiscate over 115 kilos of Afghani hashish

DUSHANBE, March 17. /ITAR-TASS/. Tajikistan’s presidential agency for control over drugs completed an operation of confiscating over 115 kilograms of Afghanistan-produced hashish, the authority’s press service said on Monday.

“We confiscated the first part of almost 19 kilograms together with the border control,” the source said. In the Sogdi region, they detained two drug dealers with 96 kilograms of Afghani hashish. One of the dealers had served 13 years for banditry and other crimes. “All the drugs were supposed to be shipped further to the CIS countries, and first of all to the Russian Federation.” An investigation is underway.

In 2013, the republic’s authorities confiscated over 6.5 tons of various drug substances. Within the first two months of the current year, over half a ton of drugs was confiscated.

Tajikistan, which literally every day faces drug smuggling attempts from Afghanistan, is concerned greatly with improvement of security at its borders, hoping a lot for help from the CIS countries, and first of all for its major strategic partner - the Russian Federation. General Mansurdzhon Umarov of Tajikistan’s intelligence service says “this is mostly important due to NATO’s plans to withdraw their main forces from Afghanistan."